Observation One: Inherency

The US enforces its own patent law system abroad regardless of legality; South Africa proves.

Erika Mullenbach, BA from Northwestern University in Molecular and Cellular Biology and Law School Graduate, Spring 05, Tulane Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

However strong South Africa's arguments may have been, the forty pharmaceutical companies not only had vast amounts of money to continue the lawsuit, but they also had the active support of the U.S. government. The U.S. government attempted to conform South Africa [*237] patent law to the more strict U.S.-style provisions that were not necessarily articulated in TRIPS itself, but that were supported by the U.S. government. n61 The U.S. government never articulated what specific provisions of TRIPS the South Africa Medicines Act amendment violated, but nevertheless insisted that TRIPS was potentially being violated, n62 since companies' intellectual property rights must not be infringed and a company must be able to charge what it needs to pay for the cost of research. n63 The U.S. government is the watchdog to ensure that patent rights of its citizens are not infringed. n64 It is not surprising that the U.S. government did not think that it needed to explain what TRIPS provisions were violated because TRIPS was viewed as an "untidy compromise" and lacking in the stricter provisions that the United States favors in its patent law system. n65 The methods the U.S. government used against South Africa to make South Africa repeal their amendment have been characterized as nothing short of "bullying." n66 A February 1999 report from the United States Department of State con-firmed that all relevant agencies of the U.S. government were involved in an "assiduous, concerted campaign" to modify the amendment. n67 The U.S. government even put South Africa on the Special 301 Watch List in May of 1998. n68 This was perhaps the most significant thing that the U.S. government did. The U.S. government was not just supporting pharma-ceutical companies in a lawsuit, but was now going so far as to threaten South Africa with trade sanctions if it did not comply with the demands of the pharmaceutical companies and U.S. government to not implement the amendment. n69

Intellectual property laws don’t take into account the realities of developing nations.
Adebambo Adewopo, Senior Lecturer at Lagos State University, Nigeria, Summer 02, Toledo Law Review
The very recent and protracted controversy generated over the South African legislative response to the menace of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome ("AIDS") is a classic example of the United States' role on the development of intellectual property rights in Africa, and the how intellectual property jurisprudence ignores the realities in these countries. There is no doubt that AIDS has become widespread in many parts of Africa. Lifesaving drugs are virtually unaffordable by the teeming population who is infected and dying daily by the thousands from this disease. The enactment of the controversial Medicine and Related Substances Act, as part of the legislative response to this social condition, must therefore be viewed in this context. This law, which permitted compulsory and parallel importation of affordable AIDS drugs, earned South Africa international political and legal pressure principally from the United States and pharmaceutical companies who [*765] sought understandably to protect the patent rights from expropriation by the anti-AIDS drugs. n62 Although it appears the matter has been settled with the withdrawal of the suit, the real issue remains unresolved. The real issues are the unabated tension of interests between developed and developing countries, between the economics of intellectual property and the needs of developing countries, and the application of international law to national law. Apart from the socio-economic and humane justification for the anti-AIDS law, one of the strongest arguments lies in the TRIPS Agreement which clearly provides for a "national emergency" exception for "conditions constituting grounds for member nations to grant such compulsory licenses, such as public health, nutrition, other reasons of public interest, national emergency, and public non-commercial use." n63 It is clear the South African law falls under this TRIPS provision. The case has once again brought to the fore the conceptual and practical intransigence of intellectual property rights to the socio-economic and political conditions of developing countries, and the urgent need for developing countries to consistently adapt intellectual property rights to the socio-economic and cultural realities of their environment.



Doha allows countries to place public health concerns before profits.
WHO, May 06, Bulletin of the WHO, 337-424
Following the TRIPS Agreement, there was growing concern and evidence that patent rules might restrict access to affordable medicines for people in developing countries, particularly for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. This led to the November 2001 Doha Ministerial Declaration which stated: “The (TRIPS) Agreement can and should be interpreted and implemented in a manner supportive of WTO members’ right to protect public health and, in particular, to promote access to medicines for all.” The Declaration refers to a number of flexibilities, including the right to grant compulsory licences and to permit parallel importation (see box). It also extends the transition period during which least-developed countries do not have to enforce or grant patents on pharmaceutical products until 2016.
But developing countries aren’t taking advantage these flexibilities.

WHO, May 06, Bulletin of the WHO, 337-424
Developing countries are failing to make full use of flexibilities built into the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) to overcome patent barriers and, in turn, allow them to acquire the medicines they need for high priority diseases, in particular, HIV/AIDS.
First reason is fear of US sanctions.
WHO, May 06, Bulletin of the WHO, 337-424
Developing countries that produce lower cost generics and attempt to bring down the price of medicines feel that they are under pressure from industrialized countries and the multinational pharmaceutical industry and tend to be reluctant to make the most of these provisions: “Following the Doha Declaration countries can legally set patents aside, but countries are hesitant to do so because they are afraid of provoking the anger of the United States. The political pressure is enormous,” says ’t Hoen: “I am worried that things will have to get a lot worse before countries make a move to ensure production through compulsory licences.”


Second reason is lack of production capabilities.

Obijiofor Aginam, Associate Professor of Law, Carleton University, Summer 06¸ North Carolina Journal of International Law & Commercial Regulation

[*912] As the debate on the public health flexibilities in the TRIPS agreement raged, on November 14, 2001, after prolonged agitation by developing countries and sustained advocacy by a coalition of civil society groups, the WTO ministerial conference in Doha, adopted the Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health. n44 The Declaration affirmed that TRIPS can and should be interpreted and implemented in a manner supportive of WTO Members' right to protect public health, and in particular, to promote access to medicines for all. n45 The Declaration recognized that WTO Members with insufficient or no manufacturing capacities in the pharmaceutical sector could face difficulties in making effective use of compulsory licensing under the TRIPS Agreement. n46 On August 30, 2003, the General Council of the WTO adopted a decision on the Implementation of Paragraph 6 of the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health. n47 The decision provides for the criteria aimed at facilitating access to essential medicines, including anti-retrovirals for HIV/AIDS, by vulnerable populations in the least developed and developing countries. Despite the WTO General Council Decision in 2003, difficult questions still remain on the best ways to maximize access to essential medicines, especially anti-retroviral drugs for HIV/AIDS. While the Decision imposes certain key obligations on exporting and importing countries for these medicines, only two industrialized countries, Canada and Norway, have initiated legislative changes to their national patent laws to allow domestic production of generic drugs for export to poor countries hit by HIV/AIDS and other diseases. n48 The [*913] Decision imposes an obligation on developing countries to notify the WTO of an intention to become an eligible importing member, and to notify the WTO specifically about the products and quantities. n49


This means only 1 percent of the sub-Saharan African population that needs ARVs have access to them.

Josephine Johnston and Angela Wasunna, associate for law and bioethics The Hastings Center, associate for international programs at The Hastings Center, January-February 2007, “Patents, Biomedical Research, and Treatments” Project Muse. http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/hastings_center_report/v037/37.1johnston.pdf. [BL]

With proper administration, drugs can greatly prolong the lifespan of people with HIV/AIDS and reduce morbidity. The most beneficial drugs currently on the market are antiretrovirals (ARVs), which limit the damage that HIV does to the immune system and can prevent mother- to-child transmission.72These are the most critical drugs because they reduce the viral load in the bloodstream to nearly undetectable levels and reduce opportunistic infections. In effect, they transform HIV/AIDS into a chronic infection requiring mostly outpatient care.73 A combination or “cocktail” of antiretroviral drugs has thus far proven most effective. Anti-infective agents to treat or prevent opportunistic infections and palliative drugs to relieve physical and mental discomfort are also important, and most of them are available as affordable, generic drugs. All ARV medicines, on the other hand, are currently under patent in developed countries (although patents on three of the drugs will expire in 2006)74 Currently, less than 5 percent of people in developing countries who need ARVs have access to them—and in sub-Saharan Africa, only about 1 percent have access. In North America and Western and Central Europe, a large majority of people who need antiretroviral treatment have access to it. As a result, AIDS deaths have stayed low since plummeting in the mid-to-late 1990s.75The role of patents in creating these access problems is by no means uniform, but as the following case shows, patent holders have legal rights that they can use to prevent the production of cheap drugs.


Observation Two: Advantages

Advantage One: AIDS Treatment

Attempts to solve AIDS have failed due to the current framework for treatment.

Obijiofor Aginam, Associate Professor of Law, Carleton University, Summer 06¸ North Carolina Journal of International Law & Commercial Regulation

Our response to AIDS has so far been a failure. There has been scientific progress, but with few dividends for people living with poverty as well as HIV. In most of sub-Saharan Africa, they have access to neither prevention nor treatment. Three million deaths this year, and not yet counted millions of new infections, bespeak massive failure.
- Paul Farmer n11

Although HIV/AIDS has become a global emergency with over 45 million cases globally since 1980, n12 the disproportionate infection rate and prevalence of the mortality and morbidity burdens of the disease between the developing and developed regions of the world raises legal, moral, and ethical questions about the global framework for its prevention, control, and most importantly, treatment. n13 Although the HIV/AIDS pandemic is global with the number of infections rising in almost every region of the world, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization estimate that Africa remains by far the worst-affected region, with 25.4 million [23.4 million - 28.4 million] people living with HIV at the end of 2004, compared to 24.4 million [22.5 million-27.3 million] in 2002. Just under two thirds (64%) of all people living with HIV are in sub-Saharan Africa, as are more than three quarters (76%) of all women living with HIV. n14

If AIDS is left untreated it will spread from sub-Saharan Africa to affect the entire world.

Mary K. Schug, U of Minnesota Law and BA in social welfare at U of Wisconsin, Summer 01, Law and Equality

Approximately thirty-four million people in the world are infected with the HIV/AIDS virus. n1 Cases are growing fastest in the developing world, with the African continent being hit the hardest by the pandemic. n2 Exacerbating the effects of HIV/AIDS, one-third of the world population and fifty percent of the population in parts of sub-Saharan Africa do not have access to essential medicines. n3 Furthermore, ninety-five percent of people [*230] with AIDS worldwide do not have access to any HIV/AIDS treatment. n4 The devastation to sub-Saharan Africa has begun. n5 The resultant situation will affect not only sub-Saharan Africa, but also the entire world.


US patent laws hurt antiretroviral access.

Michael Westerhaus and Arachu Castro, medical resident Brigham and Women’s Hospital, assistant professor of social medicine, Harvard Medical School, August 2006, “How Do Intellectual Property Law and International Trade Agreements Affect Access to Antiretroviral Therapy?” PLOS. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=1526770 [BL]

However, recent US trade policy threatens to undermine these advances in improving access to ARVs. After failing to promote “free” trade on hemispheric and global levels, the US has embarked on an aggressive campaign to liberalize trade through bilateral, regional, and multilateral trade agreements (Box 1). These agreements have conditioned liberalized trade upon the expansion of IP law for multinational pharmaceutical companies holding patents for ARVs, among other essential medicines. Specifically, these agreements extend the protection of patents beyond the 20-year period (Box 2), freeze generic manufacturing of ARVs, protect the manufacturers' drug testing data for five years (a practice known as data exclusivity), and limit options for compulsory licensing. Additional measures include a reduction in the number of inventions, such as “diagnostic, therapeutic, and surgical methods,” that can be excluded from patent law, the allowance of known substances to be patented again for each new use, and provisions requiring national drug regulatory authorities to block registration of generic medications. Such broadened IP rules beyond those negotiated in the WTO TRIPS agreement are now referred to as “TRIPS-plus” measures [45].

Fixing US patent law would allow greater access to medical technology.

Mary K. Schug, U of Minnesota Law and BA in social welfare at U of Wisconsin, Summer 01, Law and Equality

Many factors contribute to the lack of availability of pharmaceuticals in the developing world. Of these factors, absence of production, lack of research, and prohibitive prices play significant roles. n11 U.S. patent law and the World Trade Organization's (WTO) Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of [*231] Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement) n12 function to keep the prices of drugs high and require countries to respect intellectual property rights, often at the expense of promoting access to essential pharmaceuticals. n13 Former President Bill Clinton took a new stance on the situation in May 2000 when he issued Executive Order 13,155. n14 The Executive Order provides that tshe United States will not seek to revoke or revise any intellectual property law or policy of a beneficiary sub-Saharan African country that regulates HIV/AIDS pharmaceuticals or medical technologies. n15 However, it is unclear whether Executive Order 13,155 has promoted access to these drugs in a meaningful way. n16 The World Health Organization (WHO) has also offered possible solutions to the problem, stating that providing adequate financing, affordable pricing, and a reliable supply system are all critical to making pharmaceuticals available. n17 To effectively combat the disease, the United States, the pharmaceutical companies, the governments of developing nations, and financial institutions must make a concerted effort to make essential medicines and medical technology available to persons affected by the HIV/AIDS virus. n18
This Note focuses on how HIV/AIDS virus is affecting sub-Saharan Africa and argues that the United States, in collaboration with the pharmaceutical industry and various international organizations, must take affirmative steps toward promoting access to essential medicines. n19 Part I gives an overview of the complex issues involved in approaching this subject. It identifies the population affected and the severity of the AIDS crisis, and describes the recent medical advances that have greatly increased the chances of survival for persons living with the HIV/AIDS virus. n20 It also examines laws that are involved, including the TRIPS Agreement, U.S. patent law, and Executive Order 13,155. n21 Finally, Part I looks at the role of the WHO, the U.N., and the World Bank in breaking down the barriers that inhibit access to essential medicines. n22


ARVs can treat AIDS.

Jamie Crook, Boalt Hall School of Law JD, 05, Berkeley Journal of International Law

A daily cocktail of anti-retroviral medication has transformed HIV/AIDS into a "treatable and chronic" condition for individuals who can afford the treatment. n18 An effective anti-retroviral regimen reduces the viral load, diminishes the virus's ability to replicate itself in the bloodstream of infected patients, decreases the risk of transmission, and encourages participation in [*527] prevention efforts. n19 The WHO reports that since its introduction nine years ago, anti-retroviral therapy has led to significant reductions in morbidity and mortality rates where the treatment is widely available. n20 In wealthy states, rates of AIDS-related deaths and mother-to-child transmissions have dropped by as much as 50% with the introduction of anti-retroviral treatment. n21 Consistent access to anti-retroviral treatment can significantly prolong life expectancy and increase productivity and quality of life, while concomitantly decreasing the rate of hospitalization and related public health care costs. n22 With adequate access, anti-retroviral therapy can transform AIDS into a treatable condition rather than an early death sentence. n23

Which threatens extinction of humankind.

Susan Hunter, 2003, an independent consultant to certain agencies of the United Nations (WHO, UNAIDS, UNICEF), BLACK DEATH: AIDS IN AFRICA, p. 9

By taking a closer, more reasoned look at why Africa has failed to develop as a continent, we can understand the future of AIDS on other continents. Africa is only the worst case of an inhumane scenario being played out in other regions of the world to the detriment of the human species as a whole. The growing wealth of developed countries over the past two centuries and the growing impoverishment of developing regions are inescapably related. The deprivation that limits the lives of one in every five human beings on the planet creates a burden of moral responsibility not only to give back, but to think about a strategy that yields a safer and saner world for the children of every country in the twenty-first century. As HIV/AIDS and other epidemic diseases increase, they are creating a huge disease reservoir that threatens the very existence of humankind. One of the most important evolutionary relationships is between humans and their microbes, and many scientists feel that because of fundamental neglect of the needs of 20 percent of the human race, the microbes are winning.

And it will lead to ethnic war and conflict.

American Health Line, 5/01/00, “Politics & Policy - Aids: Clinton Declares Disease A Security Threat” http://www.americanhealthline.com/archives/2000/05/m000501.3.html

Worried that the AIDS epidemic could "topple foreign governments, touch off ethnic wars and undo decades of work in building free-market democracies abroad," the Clinton administration has formally declared the disease a threat to U.S. national security, the Washington Post reports. The declaration is part of a new U.S. effort to fight the disease abroad, sparked by intelligence reports last year predicting that "[d]ramatic declines in life expectancy" among those in African and other impoverished nations due to AIDS would provide a strong risk factor for "revolutionary wars, ethnic wars, genocides and disruptive regime transitions" (Gellman, Washington Post, 4/30). According to ABC's Martha Raddatz, the administration has declared that the "global death rate from HIV/AIDS is so overwhelming, the spread of infection so rapid and the consequences to national security so dire ... that the United States must in effect declare war on the disease" (ABC, "World N
ews," 4/30). Sandy Thurman, director for the White House Office of National AIDS Policy, said, "We have to respond to this because we've never seen a crisis like HIV and AIDS globally. We're beginning to understand that this epidemic not only has health implications, but has implications as a fundamental development issue, an economic issue and a stability and security issue." She added, "With the logistical expertise that the national security community brings, with the diplomatic expertise that is necessary to sort of pave the road for leaders around the world to respond to this epidemic, this gives us a whole new ability to respond to AIDS like we would respond to any other international threat" (AP/Nando Times, 4/30). But efforts to coordinate AIDS programs with national security forces may face some problems, as "[t]here is no recent precedent for treating disease as a security threat," the Washington Post reports. Hoping to get up to speed on the issue, the National Security Council is conducting a "rapid reassessment" of the government's anti-AIDS activities. Meanwhile, the White House has asked Congress to double overseas spending against the epidemic to $254 million and formed an interagency working group to "develop a series of expanded initiatives to drive the international efforts."


It’s a moral responsibility to change our policies toward the pharmaceutical industry.
Conceição Soares, Assistant Professor in Business Ethics, Faculty of Economics and Management Catholic University of Portugal, July 2007, “The HIV/AIDS crisis and corporate moral responsibility in the light of the Levinasian notions of proximity and the Third” Business Ethics: A European Review, Volume 16, Number 3, http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1467-8608.2007.00499.x [BL]
In this paper I will analyse a set of problems regarding HIV/AIDs crisis (and similar catastrophes) in sub-Saharan Africa in the domain of corporate moral responsibility – within the context of the Levinasian notion of proximity and the third. Against a totalitarian, homogenous society, Levinas opens the way to a social pluralism, which has its sources in the disquiet provoked by the strangeness of the Other ́s face. Corporate responsibility, understood from this point of view, would not reduce institutional relations to an anonymous world of neutrality. Corporate responsibility is unconditional in the sense that to be responsible is not a question of choice, but one of deep liberty, the liberty of taking the burden of the infinite responsibility for the Other – customers, employees, the public at large, and those who suffer in the world (the victims of the extant responsibility-denying policies pursued by certain corporations, such as those in the Western pharmaceutical industry). I shall argue that it would then also mean that society (individuals, NGOs and governments) in accordance with the spirit of the Levinasian philosophy of infinite responsibility could exert pressure on corporations, such as pharmaceutical companies, to change their present responsibility-denying policies to responsibility-affirming ones with regard to those who are ill and who suffer death or debilitation from HIV/AIDs and other prevalent diseases in the poorest parts of the world today. More than forty million people worldwide are HIV-positive, three million are children and almost thirty million are in the sub-Saharan Africa. NGOs like Oxfam say that the challenge of AIDS could be met, if it where not life- sustaining drugs which are owned by private companies (Oxfam 2002). As Médicins Sans Frontières argue “Patents are not go-given rights. They are tools invented to benefit society as a whole, not to line the pockets of a handful of multinational pharmaceutical companies (...). The patent monopoly means that a higher price than necessary has to be paid for patented inventions. This is acceptable if this higher price is merely an inconvenience (...). However, if the patented invention is essential, then the price is more of a dilemma” (MSF 2003, pp. 3-5).


Thus we present the following plan:

The United States federal government should export generic antiretroviral drugs to Sub-Saharan Africa under revised patent policy.

The United States federal government should revise its patent policy in order to export generic antiretroviral drugs to Sub-Saharan Africa.

Generic Drug Exportation 1AC

Observation Three: Solvency

Compulsory licensing won’t work with sub-Saharan Africa because of a lack of production capacity; the US needs to allow production of generic drugs by revising patent legislation.

Obijiofor Aginam, Associate Professor of Law, Carleton University, Summer 06¸ North Carolina Journal of International Law & Commercial Regulation
About 80% of developing countries lack a functional pharmaceutical sector with a capacity for domestic production of anti-retroviral drugs. n50 As a result, these countries cannot issue compulsory license for domestic production of generic HIV/AIDS drugs simply because they lack the capacity and technology to do so. The only option for many of these countries remains a dual process that involves importing generics from an industrialized country that is willing to amend its patent legislation to produce generic drugs solely for export to countries in most need of them. But can industrialized countries withstand the pressure and corporate lobby by the pharmaceutical industry? If there is one lesson to learn from the TRIPS negotiations in the 1990s, it is that the industry lobby remains very influential and powerful in international economic relations. As Scott Sinclair observed, "corporate pressure is nothing new in WTO negotiations. Such pressure, largely exerted by U.S-based firms, is widely acknowledged to have been a driving force in the negotiations." n51 The entire gamut of international trade and global economic relations is now shaped by the "neo-liberal dogma of minimizing intrusions on the market, and "downsizing' the role of government in relation to the provision of public goods that compose the social agenda." n52 Promotion of human rights and human dignity; public health and access to essential medicines; respect for the environment, and protection of environmental rights, all come with [*914] this social agenda. The establishment of the WTO has challenged the actors in global governance (both states and non-states) to take the task of balancing neo-liberal ideology with the promotion of global public goods n53 seriously.

Revisions of patent laws allow for successful export of generic medicines.

WHO, May 06, Bulletin of the WHO, 337-424
Although existing provisions of the TRIPS Agreement permit the granting of compulsory licenses to enable generic production of medicines, countries without domestic manufacturing capacity cannot use this flexibility. This is because TRIPS requires production under compulsory license to be predominantly for the supply of the domestic market. In 2003, the WTO waived this export restriction and the decision is in the process of being made permanent. Under this waiver, countries that do not have their own drug manufacturing capability can issue a compulsory license so that another country or company in another country can manufacture generic drugs for them.
However, organizations such as MSF have criticized the import mechanism for being unnecessarily cumbersome as it is based on a drug-by-drug, country-by-country and case-by-case decision-making process.
Under the waiver, potential exporting countries must amend their national laws to enable the production and export of generic medicines under compulsory license. Canada, India, China and Norway have done this while the European Union is considering draft legislation. But so far not a single product has been delivered to a patient under these new rules and no single country has even notified the WTO of its intention to use the system as an importer. This may be because it is too complex and burdensome.


The US must revise its patent legislation because it is the only country that encourages strict patent rules.

Erika Mullenbach, BA from Northwestern University in Molecular and Cellular Biology and Law School Graduate, Spring 05, Tulane Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

There are two sides of the debate over the TRIPS agreement, even though the TRIPS agreement reflects compromise by both sides of the debate. n27 One side believes that the minimum standards for patent [*232] protection stated in the TRIPS agreement are insufficient, while the other side views the TRIPS rules as too "strict, U.S.-style." n28 The U.S. pharmaceutical industry is arguably the harshest critic to TRIPS and has ardently encouraged all member countries to follow the "strict, U.S.-style" patent rules. The U.S. pharmaceutical industry objected to TRIPS because of the climate of the U.S. economy.

Revision of US patent policy is key to solving because under current laws exportation of medicines is banned and the US uses it to convince other countries to ban exports as well.

Erika Mullenbach, BA from Northwestern University in Molecular and Cellular Biology and Law School Graduate, Spring 05, Tulane Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

The U.S. economy is not surprisingly extroverted and trade between other countries is vastly important to its vitality. In particular, forty percent of the income of the U.S. pharmaceutical industry comes from exporting its pharmaceuticals. n29 The U.S. companies are most likely to export to countries that are members of TRIPS since there are 117 member countries. Consequently, the U.S. companies want their buyers to conform to TRIPS. The U.S. pharmaceutical industry continues to put significant pressure on TRIPS members to adhere to and expand the TRIPS provisions because intellectual property has been a rapidly growing field since TRIPS was implemented in 1995. n30 The greatest concern of the U.S. pharmaceutical industry is that countries to which they export will only implement the minimum standards stated in TRIPS, or perhaps will not even implement the minimum standards if the country can argue that there is an emergency or public health need. Thus, the pharmaceutical industry has been the leader in trying to stop practices like compulsory licensing in TRIPS member countries that the industry thinks are below the minimum standards that the U.S. government would support.

Finally, the US has convinced several countries in the WTO including China to refrain from taking advantage of TRIPS provisions which would allow exportation of generics.

Julia A. Moore, Law Professor at Richmond University, Summer 06, Richmond Journal of Global Law and Business
On August 30, 2003, the WTO developed a compromise that suited all members, and allowed for parallel trade to nations in medical crises. n93 Those countries may obtain a compulsory license to a patented drug; they cannot produce it, but may import it from another "eligible importing Member" that has a compulsory license to the drug. n94 The importing Member must take "reasonable measures" to make sure the drug imported into the country is not re-exported to another country. n95
In an effort to confine the parallel licensing only to the most needy countries, the United States convinced several countries not to take advantage of the parallel licensing provision. Those countries - China, Korea, Israel, Kuwait, Mexico, Qatar, Singapore, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates - announced separately that they would only use the system in "situations of national emergency or other circumstance of extreme urgency." n96 The Bush administration also stated it wanted the measure restricted to a certain number of diseases to prevent the domino effect with other compulsory licenses, but no such stipulation was made in the compromise. n97

Throughout the WTO negotiations, the United States maintained its anti-patent weakening position, forcing the rest of the WTO to adjust their policies to reflect this stance. n98 The EU proves itself more open to measures that would potentially damage the pharmaceutical industry, such as the pricing database, tiered pricing systems, and parallel trading for compulsorily licensed drugs.